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Tangerine Dream - Flashpoint (OST) CD (album) cover

FLASHPOINT (OST)

Tangerine Dream

Progressive Electronic

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greenback
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars This record has some electronic drums parts (like on Rush's Grace under pressure, but much simpler here!) There are many songs that are not really full of keyboards, and Froese's electric guitar is VERY discreet and rare: I have detected it on the "Plane Ride" track; The album borrows some elements from albums like Hyperborea and Poland: for instance, "Highway patrol" has a strong "Sphinx Lightning" influence. The tracks are short, often full of beat, not linear, and they have a rather film music style. An odd surprise is the "Flashpoint" track, a very banal rock song performed by The Gems. My 2 favorite tracks are: "Going west", a melodic keyboards oriented track with powerful electronic drums beat; the sound is pleasant and addictive; "Mystery tracks", a soothing piece full of mellow & melodic streams of keyboards. Like on the Stratosfear album, Tangerine Dream uses harmonica here, at the end of "Lost in the Dunes". This album has a couples of variations on the same theme.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Report this review (#63823)
Posted Monday, January 9, 2006 | Review Permalink
octopus-4
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
3 stars A trivia found on IMDB: When the director William Tannen hired Tangerine Dream to score "Flashpoint" he told them not to do the end title song because he had one he was using - "Sympathy For The Devil" by The Rolling Stones. Tangerine Dream said it was the perfect song to end the film with. They scored the entire film but this piece. The studio felt the song was too expensive and instead gave the assignment to an assistant who worked for one of the vice presidents. It was voted "worst" end title song for 1984 by Leonard Matlin, the film critic.

This is just a curiosity but gives us a precious hint: skip the title track. Fortunately all the other material comes from Froese & co. Of course it's just one of the many soundtracks composed by the German band during the 80s and it has a western tex-mex flavor because it has to comment a movie whose plot starts in a desert land of the Southwest..

Effectively it's not the first time that Tangerine Dream explore this land. In their live "Encore" they told us of Cherokee lands, so an Afternoon In The Desert doesn't cause them any problem.

The problem is the track's length instead. TD need more time to develop consistently a musical idea, so even though their electronic music, specially their 80s, is always a good background to images and open landscapes, they can't express themselves like on side length tracks.

Specifically to this album, the most "western" tracks are the best. This is to say that the only non-western "Mistery Tracks" is not at the level of the others.

It's a good album, a bit darker than usual because of the movie's plot. Cut out the title track and it can have 3 stars.

Report this review (#494462)
Posted Tuesday, August 2, 2011 | Review Permalink

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